The origin of man is believed to have started some 3 million years ago in southern Africa.

Human migratory patterns can be traced back almost 200,000 years by using bones, tools and fossils through carbon dating and DNA records.

Thousands of years ago

Petroglyphs

Petroglyphs are carvings in rock. Petro means stone in Greek, glyphos means carving. These carvings in Twyfelfontein, Nambia in central Africa are 6000 years old.

World Heritage Sites

Petroglyphs are found all over the world. Each dot represents a World Heritage Site for preserving petroglyphs.

The oldest known man-made stone carvings are found in Bhimbetka, India and date back from 700,000 to 300,000 BCE

World Heritage Sites

Speech has been the basis for human communication since over 200,000 years ago.

As oral histories were passed down in the form of stories and folktales, Stone Age man developed the tools to make those stories more permanent with stone carvings.

Most petroglyphs were created between between 10,000 and 12,000 BCE.

Petroglyph of gladiators in battle was found in Nadro, Italy and dates back to 500 - 1000 BCE.

Bighorn sheep are carved in rocks found in California dating back from 500 BCE to about 1,000 CE.

Carved symbols found in rock on two islands in Lake Nicaragua.

Pictographs have been discovered in African and European caves from 10,000 - 15,000 years bce. Pictographs are drawn pictures of animals and other objects.

Pictographs found in the Lascaux caves in southern France appear to tell the story of a hunt. There are also design symbols of possible mystical meaning called ideographs. These may have been be used to convey ideas or concepts – such as numbers, dates, or rituals.

The pictographs can be read from left to right, indicating that they were not created just for art, but serve a utilitarian purpose, perhaps to bestow good luck on future hunts. They are the earliest record of visual communication.

Agriculture developed around 4,000 BCE. Nomadic tribes settled down and began to farm and store their food. Early civilizations were established in Mesopotamia (circa 4000 BCE), and soon after in Egypt (circa 3000 BCE).

The cradle of civilization

Mesopotamia was considered the cradle of civilization. They developed village trades such as potters, carpenters and stonecutters. The early Sumerians developed a pictographic language to record inventories of grain and animals. They created a written means to barter and govern the rules of trade.

Cuneiform

The Sumerians used a stylus to imprint characters onto soft clay. Some were stored as dried clay tablets and some were fired in kilns, much like pottery.

Cuneiform went through centuries of transformations. Pictographs became even more simplified, symbols became ideographs for concepts such as “day” and “night”. Picture symbols began to represent the sounds of objects depicted rather than illustrate the objects themselves.

The highest development of Cuneiform used abstract signs for syllables, or sounds.

This form of writing was difficult to master. Youngsters began their schooling as Scribes before the age of ten. The general public held those who could write in awe. Many were given positions in priesthood, government, accounting and medicine.

One of the first written laws in the world. It was placed in a public place so that all could see it, although few were literate. The code spells out many offenses resulting in death, disfigurement, or the use of the “Eye for an Eye” philosophy.

The Law Code of Hammurabi (cuneiform)

The Sumerians also originated Cylinder Seals. These relief cylinders were indented with images that when rolled across a clay tablet left behind a raised image. They served as a signature of the owner, to authorize official documents.

Sumerian Cylinder Seals

Each Cylinder Seal bore the imprint of its owner’s identity. They were etched in stone with a hole through the center and often worn around the neck with a tether. Cylinder seals became one of the earliest known uses of an individual’s “trademark”.

Sumerian Cylinder Seals

This cylinder seal bears the imprint of Darius I of Persia which combines the relief of the king slaying a lion from his chariot along with a column of cuneiform writing (at right).

Sumerian Cylinder Seals

Egyptian hieroglyphics

Shortly after and during the Mesopotamian era when cuneiform writing began, the Egyptians established an elaborately illustrated form of writing known as hieroglyphics.

Egyptian hieroglyphics

Words and syllables are represented by pictographs of objects and symbols that sound like words.

Egyptians believed they would meet a final judgment and the gods would transport them to either damnation or eternal life.

Gods were represented as mystical beings with symbolic animal heads meant to guide them safely on their final journey.

Papyrus

Egyptians invented papyrus, a paper made from thin slices of reeds laminated in strips. The Egyptians were the first to illustrate manuscripts with words and pictures painted on scrolls of papyrus.

Egyptian Book of the Dead

Scribes and artists were commissioned to prepare funerary papers, or papyri, for Egyptians to carry with them into the afterlife upon burial to prove they had led worthy lives. Gods would decide if they deserved the afterlife they wished for.

Papyrus of Ani Egyptian Book of the Dead

Ani was a high-ranking scribe. Here, he and his wife seek safe passage upon judgment day. The gods will weigh his heart (conscience) to see that it balances with the feather (written law).

Egyptian cursive script

Pictorial hieroglyphs and illustrations were time consuming and not practical for day-to-day business.

Simplified hieroglyphic symbols were developed for correspondence, law decrees and property papers.

Egyptian demotic script

Eventually, by 400 BCE, demotic script made Egyptian writing even more fluid. Demotic script took on the characteristics of modern handwriting.

The Rosetta Stone is a black slab of granite unearthed by Napoleon’s troops in 1799 near the Egyptian town of Rosetta.

It was inscribed in two languages with three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphics Demotic script Greek

Archeologists could translate Greek. The demotic script was the first to be deciphered, and it was learned that all three translated the same message: a decree that announced the ascension of Pharaoh Ptolemy to the Egyptian throne, written at around 197 BCE.

The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone was the breakthrough that led to the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics.Egyptian hieroglyphs appeared at the top

The Rosetta Stone

Egyptian demotic script appeared below the hieroglyphs

The Rosetta Stone

The bottom text was written in Greek

When Egyptian scribes were confronted with a word too difficult to express visually, they chose pictures of things that used the same sound in speech. From the translations, it was discovered that language was written in a phonetic form that became the precursor to the modern alphabet.

pt "ua" l

m y (ii) s Ptolmys

The Rebus

Egyptians used the rebus to mimic their language. A rebus combines pictures and symbols to sound out a phrase or idea. This rebus comes from the 1960s TV show Concentration and reads “I don’t believe what I see.”

The Rebus

This rebus sounds out the name of a movie

The Rebus

Both Lucky Lager and Rainier beers featured rebuses under their bottle caps.